After Mina
by shukuo
Summary: Based loosely on the book version of Dracula. Anne, a smallvillage girl, meets a mysterious man in the castle all the elders say belongs to a monster. Completely Grated so far. In progress.
1. Moonlight

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Dracula, much as I would have liked to be the genius that created him, inspiring thousands of vampire books, movies, even a comic… In fact, I don't even completely own the character of Anne: she is based on Elizabeth, who is the work of Neopets role-player, and my good friend, chocoholic4ever121. And no, I don't own Neopets, either.

A. N. – Please don't review if you don't have anything specific to say. I want to improve, and I need to know exactly what is good or bad about my writing.

Anne clambered over a moss-covered rock, shiny in the early afternoon light, one of many boulders going up the hillside to the castle in the distance. Her skirt was streaked with green and brown, but she didn't care. The wind tousled her brown-black hair affectionately, and eyes looked out on the world. They were as startlingly green as the moss she rested fair hands on. She wasn't pretty, not like some of the other girls in the small village, partly because she refused to spend hours brushing her hair, mending her clothes, and polishing her shoes. Or perhaps she refused to do those things because she believed herself to be not beautiful enough.

She climbed onwards to the castle, keeping in mind Adrian's dare: to go in, and bring back something to show she'd been there. But she planned to not only accomplish that, but to do something extraordinary, something that would keep Adrian and the rest of the village boys from mocking her ever again. Fear hardly entered her mind: the Count was the legacy of the oldest people in the village, a shadow that could not stand up to the light of youth. Anne snorted derisively as she thought about the superstition of the adults.

She reached the castle, and stood up straight to catch her breath and take in the view. The village seemed so tiny from this vantage, as if the occupants were merely dolls, nothing more, living out their shallow lives without thinking, without rising above it all. As her thudding heart slowed, she turned once again towards her goal. The large wooden door…It was some wood she had never seen before: too red… rose like a tidal wave before her. She walked up to it and knocked, then laughed at herself for her foolishness. As if there were an occupant! She pushed the door open, and gasped as she saw the opulent furnishings. Dark blue carpets on polished wooden floors flowed up an elaborately carved staircase, and candles in the walls were lit. She didn't pause to think that the surroundings were dust-free, and the candles still lit at the tops, where they had been newly lit.

She forged on through the castle, a strange fear oppressing her mind like fog over the ocean. She paused to collect herself, leaning against the wall facing a colossal portrait of a fair, slender man, staring at what was presumably the painter with a breathtaking arrogance. It was difficult for Anne to believe that one person should be so confident that the world would bow to him, if only it were intelligent enough to do so. She chuckled, thinking how this man probably had grown old and ugly, and died in obscurity, arrogance unjustified. But what little trinket could she take... not steal, for things without an owner can't be stolen... She continued down the hallway.

As she walked, there was a sound of a gypsy fiddle.That was not so strange, they passed through occasionally, on their ceaseless travels. She followed it for lack of another guide through this increasingly strange place. She passed a small side table, and opened the small drawer. Inside was a locket, covered with the only coat of dust in the place. She smiled as she looked at it. It would do to convince Adrian. As she turned to leave, the music faded, then stopped. Had she thought to turn around, she would have heard a small thump as the instrument was set down, and a figure turn the corner, tall, slim, and with an arrogant stare, illuminated by moonlight through the window at the end of the hallway.

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As she left, Anne realized that night had fallen while she was in the castle, and wondered that she had spent so much time there. It hadn't felt like very long at all... The warm fires of the village beckoned, and she ran to them.

"... so don't you ever call me 'just a girl' again!" she finished triumphantly to Adrian, showing him the locket she had found. Adrian was not her brother, but the two were almost siblings, they had spent so much time together since infancy.

"You're just telling stories," accused Adrian, although his eyes were convinced. He clicked open the heart-shaped necklace with his fingernail. Then, suddenly, he turned ashen. From the locket, he looked up at Anne's face, warm and soft in the firelight, then back to the locket. Then, he handed it to her, still open.

"It's... me," she said in wonder. But at the same time, it wasn't her. This girl was fair, almost to an impossible degree, and had an unearthly beauty. She blushed. "Never mind," she said, quickly flipping it shut. "It was a trick of the light. I was wrong."

Guessing his friend was upset, Adrian changed the subject. "So did you see the monster?"

Anne laughed, calmer. "He had green hair and rotten teeth, and he smelled like Grandmother. Worse."

"Is that even possible?" asked Adrian quizzically, eyebrow arching in skepticism.

"No, I guess not."

"Well, I'll just have to go up and be the judge! I solemnly swear to impartially judge these honorable participants, Grandmother and..."

Anne interrupted, "We'll go together. Tomorrow. Now get out, I want to get some sleep!"

"Well, then, princess, get your beauty sleep, for tomorrow we visit your royal castle." replied Adrian with a bow and a quick leap out the door before she could smack him.


	2. Faraway Lands

The next day, after the tiny one-room schoolhouse let them leave, the pair went to visit the castle.

"Slow down!" he shouted as he picked his way between the enormous glacial boulders that Anne pranced on top of without a second thought.

"Speed up!" she shouted in reply, throat bubbling with laughter.

She reached the castle before him, and ventured in, considering herself an expert in old, run-down castles... or at least this one. After all, she thought, I've been here before!

Adrian saw her go in, and finally arrived at the wooden door himself. He shivered as he put his hand to the latch, but couldn't think of anything that might have caused it. His hesitant hands lifted the latch, and he followed his friend.

She was not in the main foyer, and he could not hear her joyful laughter. All the stories of monsters flooded his mind, and the green hair, rotten teeth, and smell of old age seemed to come crashing in upon him, when a hand on his shoulder made him start and leap around and...

"Look at this!" said Anne, hand on his shoulder. She took his hand and tugged him down a narrow corridor, where torches, again newly lit, almost replaced the afternoon sun. After climbing a tiny curving stairway that made their eyes spin from dizziness, they reached the roof of the castle. Gargoyles decorated the cardinal points, spouting water that sparkled like diamonds. On an impulse, Anne ran to see if they were indeed spitting jewels, and was only rewarded with wet hands. But leaning over the side of the wall, she had a view she guessed none other in her village had ever seen. Blue met with blue on the horizon, at the river she knew was several miles away. The rest was somber green and brown, and closer still was her village of golden straw-topped cottages, the villagers not even big enough to seem doll-like at this height.

As Adrian sat by her, she commented, "I want to go there, someday."

"Where?"

"Where the horizon meets the land. I was told once that if you go to where the sky meets the land, then you will be truly happy."

Adrian lay back on the stone that was becoming warm with sun, eyes half-closed, hair shining blue, it was so black. "Maybe we will someday. And bring back stories that the people here never dreamed of." A moment later, he added, "Do they see us, down there?"

"No." Anne replied. "And that's good, because your mother is trying to find you."

Adrian abruptly sat up. "Laundry day! I promised her I'd help!" he said as scampered off.

"I'll stay up here a while longer," Anne called after him.

"No need for us both to work!" he called back, voice echoing from down the stairs.

Eventually, she, too, grew sleepy in the sun, sitting on the warm flagstones, and dreamed of faraway lands.


	3. Determination

How Adrian worried when Anne did not return! As the sun sank below the horizon, he squinted up into it, hoping to see her frame still perched on the edge of the roof of the crumbling castle. His eyebrows crinkled further: she was not there. Four, almost five hours had passed since they had been dismissed from class. Where was she? His parents forbade him from going anywhere, and for once in his life he was tempted to disobey. Normally, he could weasel his way out of the few orders they gave him, when he was so inclined, but it was hard to find ambiguity in, "No, you may not go outside."

Then, he tried to convince himself that she was home, somehow. Yes, that was it. She had returned while he was doing laundry, and had not heard the pebbles at her window...

Adrian sighed. His arguments sounded flimsy even in his head. As he ate dinner, practiced chess with his father, and then went to sleep, he begged her forgiveness in his head. He really did fear the ruins by night, and his parents' wrath if he left, and whatever kept Anne from returning home. As he drifted to sleep, half-real, half-dream images swirled before his mind's eye. Dreams of danger, and beauty, and evil, and death.

He awoke with a scream, but the sunlight streaming in through the curtains eased his frantic half-conscious mind. The nightmares fled as his parents came in. As his father asked what was the matter and his mother stroked his hair, he lied. He lied that he was sick, he lied that he felt dizzy, and, in what he thought was a stroke of genius, lied specifically that his neck hurt, so that his parents would not recognize his tendency to use ambiguous lies.

The parents looked at each other with a secretive, worried expression, and then at their son. "Why don't you rest then. I'll make you some soup," said the mother after the long moment. "I'll send for the pries...doctor," added the father. Adrian briefly wondered why his father had changed what he was going to say. Priest? What for?

But he didn't have time to wonder. As soon as they were gone, Adrian snuck out the window, leaving a pillow under his blanket so that it would seem he slept, and closing the curtains after himself. He climbed down the wall, ran through the village, darted up the rocks with abandon he had not had the day before, and raced up to the castle, only worried about Anne. He opened the blood-red doors, and skidded to a halt in the foyer. There was Anne, standing by the side table, singing softly to herself a gypsy tune. She did not notice him until he was behind her and said her name, quietly so as not to startle her, remembering how she had startled him the day before. She turned and smiled quietly, wearily, and then fell into a faint towards the dark marble floor. Adrian caught her in a surprisingly graceful movement. He blinked, surprised that he had not blanked out when he was needed, as usually happened. As he carried Anne back to the village, his mind drifted to the various times when he had not acted when action was necessary. When wolves attacked the village, he could not light the fire for the torches, his hands shook too much. Three children died by their claws and teeth. And when Anne's grandmother had died, he could not call the doctor, voice frozen in fear. He still didn't know if his own inaction was the cause or not. And when one of the villagers had received a long gash from his scythe during the harvest, he had completely forgotten how to bandage it. The man lived, but barely, and had no grain of his own to eat that winter. So much pain. So much death. It would not happen to Anne, he thought with determination.


	4. Chapter 4

He climbed up the ivy into his own room, fear and determination wrinkling his forehead. Wrinkling his nose was the heavy odor of garlic. He wouldn't mind it so much (after all, his mother's hand was heavy when adding it over the cooking pot) except it was so strong. As he lit a candle, he could see it everywhere, the white bulbs hanging against the wooden walls so that almost none of the wood showed through. Shrugging, he crawled into bed. In the next room, his parents heard his nocturnal activity, and his mother cried.

The next morning Adrian awoke early, before his parents were up, eager to see if Anne had recovered yet. He ate breakfast rapidly, and ran to her house.

Anne's parents let him in, and with a promise not to wake her if she was asleep, he opened the door to her room. She was awake, but drowsy. "Adrian," she said, recognizing him. She was weak, but her adventurous spirit shone through. "Let's go back... to the ruin and... play Siege the Castle."

"Maybe tomorrow. You were out like a candle, Anne, it's probably not a smart idea to be running around today."

"Do you have... to sound... like my mother?" teased Anne, voice still wavering.

"If she told you, 'Maybe tomorrow, you were out like a candle, Anne,' then yes. I do. You sure gave me a scare. I... uh... worry about you."

But she wasn't listening. Instead she stared off into space, humming the gypsy tune. Taking a hint, Adrian turned to go.

"Wait," she said as he reached the doorway. "...Thank you for saving me."

He was halfway to school before he started wondering if she meant more than avoiding a few bruises as she fell.


End file.
